


The Fighting Four-Oh-Four

by Magnanimator



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 10:41:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5536862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magnanimator/pseuds/Magnanimator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Clone Wars span the galaxy, a thousand battlefronts shifting across a million worlds. There's plenty of room for legends to be made. Obi-wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Mace Windu, Aayla Secura. The 501st Legion, the 7th Sky Corps, the 41st Elite, the 327th Star Corps. All names that will live on for centuries. </p><p>There's also plenty of room for those who never become legends. Among these are the grunts of the 404th Infantry, led by the venerable Jedi Master Drey Azani and his misfit padawan Rajuna Gol. </p><p>This is their untold story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fighting Four-Oh-Four

A clone trooper wanders the service corridors of the captured base, helmet at his side and rifle over his shoulder. His service number is CT-29-6162, and his armor is trimmed in ochre. His steps are slow and careful, and he stops here and there to peer into a corner or under a ledge. 

CT-29-61-62's brothers have given him the name “Bridge”. He knows they're gathering in the cavernous supply vault they've converted into a mess, but in the service corridors the roar of conversation is a distant hum, lost in the rattle of the climate-control systems. The dull orange paint on his armor is dark brown – almost black – in the dim overhead lighting. 

Bridge hates Separatist bases. 

Most clones do. There's never enough light, because droids don't need it. There's never enough color, because droids don't care about it. The proportions are different, the angles unfamiliar. Even when all the clankers have been neutralized and every nook and cranny has been searched and searched again for bugs and booby-traps, hair still stands up at every distant mechanical rattle.

Bridge, though, isn't most clones. Bridge hates Separatist bases because they're too _clean._

At the base on Vindoyar, the naval cadets left lewd drawings in food-dye and medical sealant. Nude figures performed acrobatic feats of debauchery along the edges of the duracrete and the undersides of the tables. Misshapen smiles were plastered over their faces as they cavorted through the shadows and hidden places. 

At the depot on Quen, the clan-militias left odd snatches of half-finished poetry, carved in glass. Bloody imprecations against their enemies and sweet odes to their friends, in fine, swirling lines along the windows and mirrors. The people of Quen love glass and blades and threats, and are capable of glorious things when given the opportunity to put all of their interests together. 

At the outpost on Inaq Minor, the clones had been preceded by a Jedi pathfinder team. Jedi practice cleanliness and detachment in all things, but still there were little scuff-marks on the floor and incense bowls forgotten in the alcoves, and a saber-etched doodle of a rancor in one corner where somebody's padawan had gotten bored. Bridge recorded them all as holos, just as he had recorded the dirty drawings and the poetry. 

They've been billeting at the old Sep base for two weeks, and he has yet to find a single mark, a single thing out of place.

There's a ringing from down the corridor, metal-on-metal. High-pitched, meaning that at least half of that equation is plasteel. Another clone is coming. Bridge shifts his rifle and starts walking faster so he can look like he'd been going somewhere.

The other clone pokes his head around the nearest corner, and waves, cheerful. 

“Our new Jedi's coming in today!”

Bridge moves his rifle to the other shoulder. 

“It's about time.” he says. The other clone is already gone.


End file.
